Benefit Of Bilingual Education

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Bilingual Education Programs Benefits Students
In the 1960s, bilingual education programs emerged throughout America because an influx of immigrants entered the United States due to new immigration policies, reveals Brad Brown in his article “The History of Bilingual Education in America.” Bilingual education programs involve putting students in an environment where their native language differs from the language spoken at the school they attend. Most bilingual education programs in the United States focus on teaching students English so the students can have numerous opportunities and options when they graduate from high school, and be able to smoothly integrate into today’s society. According to M. Lee and Maureen McMahon, disagreement about …show more content…

Pam Bremer, director of Obersee Bilingual School, states that “bilingualism gives children social, linguistic and cognitive advantages.” Learning a second language assists in advancing the students’ comprehension of “the complexities of languages” and the students think more creatively (Bremer). Moreover, while students in bilingual education programs are gaining several advantages, students in regular public schools are not gaining the same advantages, if any at all. Teaching students and providing them with a better understanding in several different topics is what schools strive to accomplish and bilingual education programs meet these goals. Furthermore, Jeff Bale, a teacher of language and language education at Michigan State University, claims that students in bilingual education programs have the ability to learn other languages at a faster rate than monolingual students once they have gained fluency in both their native language and English. With the benefits of gaining several advantages and being able to learn other languages faster than students in regular schools, the students’ performance on standardized tests in bilingual education programs surpass the results of students in regular school classrooms, but only after the students in the programs have attained the needed language skills. Not to mention, studies have proven that bilingual students adapt to change easier, are more open-minded, and feel more comfortable in environments with people of many cultures unlike monolingual students (Bremer). However, students in regular public school classrooms obtain some benefits from being around bilingual students

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